


Back to the Future

by tysonrunningfox



Series: Festerverse [4]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, IT'S FOR FUN, OC POV, festerverse, he's back in time to httyd and everything is messed, it's eret iii guys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-07 04:46:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14663619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tysonrunningfox/pseuds/tysonrunningfox
Summary: After learning about his parents past, Eret III is sucked into a mysterious, magical, magic vortex that bears no explanation and sends him colliding with Toothless after Hiccup shoots him down at the beginning of httyd.  His presence messes up everything and the only thing harder than trying to get back to his own time is fixing enough of the mess to make sure his time still exists when he gets there.





	1. Chapter 1

I’m not going to get into how the vortex happened. I don’t know. I don’t really care. All I know is that I fall through it and come out on the other side in mid-air, staring wide-eyed at the ocean below me, impossibly, fatally far away. 

“Baaaang!” I call, twisting in the air, reaching for a dragon that just isn’t there. I don’t know where I came from and I don’t know where I am, and the horizon is on fire, an island I sort of recognize dotted with wild flames. “Bang! Come on buddy!” 

Something hits me like a canon ball. Something big and hot and scaly. A dragon, obviously a stupid dragon because they aren’t flying, they’re just hurtling towards the trees, dragging me with them. I try to get my bearings, wrapping my arms around the ball of groaning, falling dragon and desperately trying to salvage my plummeting situation. It’s wrapped in ropes, and I wonder why it doesn’t just burn them off. The tip of a tree branch slaps at my upper arm, hot blood bursting from the instantaneous wound. 

I swear, tucking my head into the dragon and clutching tight to the ropes, the wind blowing back from my face because I’m on top of the dragon as it falls. My chances are slim. I might as well have jumped off of a cliff, it would have had the same result as that bizarre whirlpool. The same result, but far less terrifying. 

The dragon hits the ground with a thump and a snap of wood and the world goes dark. 

00000

When I wake up, I have no idea where I am. I roll over, fumbling for blankets or Bang’s side and finding dirt and a swath of smooth scales I don’t recognize. I groan. My head hurts. My arm feels like someone stepped on it and ground it into the dirt. I lick my lips and taste blood, sitting up and cradling my head. Everything moves, that’s what’s important, right? 

It takes me a moment to convince myself to open my eyes and when I do, it’s jarring. It’s forest. Just forest. The forest that I’m used to, pine and ferns and soft brown dirt. The dragon next to me is a night fury, curled into an unmoving ball and held there with rope. 

“Whoa,” I whisper, rocking forward onto my knees and ignoring the throbbing in my head. The dragon is still, bleeding a small trickle from the corner of its closed mouth and I crawl closer, resting my hand on its chest. Its heart is beating, slowly but I don’t know how fast a night fury’s heart is supposed to beat. It’s still wrapped in ropes and I pull the dagger from my belt, sawing carefully at the one around its front feet. Its eye springs open, big and green, and it growls, fear and pain radiating towards me. I stop sawing and rest my hand on its shoulder. “Hey there, bud. You’re alright. I’m gonna get you cut free, ok? You’re going to be just fine.” 

It growls louder, lips peeled back from bright white, barely blood stained teeth. 

“Feisty,” I turn back to the ropes and saw the rest of the way through, standing and taking a step back. I duck my head and hold out a hand in front of me, submissive like everyone knows to be around a new dragon, and it shakes the ropes off slowly, stalking towards me a few threatening steps.

“Hey bud, I’m not gonna hurt you. I’ll help you out, alright? I’ll get you some help, I know just the place,” I drop to my knees and duck my head further, my hand relaxing in the air. “You’ll love my island, bud. Dragon hangers and fish feeders and even another night fury. His owner is a bit of an asshole, but the dragon is sweet. You’ll like him.” 

No one has ever found another night fury and suddenly the whirlpool feels like it has a purpose, that I was meant to be here. I lean further towards the ground, gritting my teeth against anxiety as I expose the tender back of my neck to the dragon. It whuffs, pressing its smooth nose against the skin. I can feel its teeth, still extended, under the smooth, scaly flesh of its lips and I exhale slowly. 

“You’ll like it. We have everything a dragon like you could want.”

It pulls back from my neck and presses its nose into my hand and I rise back onto my knees slowly, keeping my hand in contact with the dragon’s nose. It growls again when I make eye contact and I look away, back at my knees, thinking ‘I’m not a threat, I’m not a threat, I’m not a threat’ over and over again like the dragon can read my mind. 

It pulls back and rolls its eyes, sitting back gingerly on its haunches and swinging its tail around in front of its face. Half of the fin is missing. 

“You are going to be excited to hear this, that other night fury I was telling you about? Same problem. We’ve got extra fins lying around everywhere. You look a little smaller but I bet I can tweak one to fit. You’ll be up and flying in no time.” I stand up slowly and take a step back, giving it space. Don’t approach a wounded dragon, don’t dominate a wild dragon, expose your weaknesses if you caught the dragon in a vulnerable spot. The cardinal rules run through my head and I take another step back, leaning against a tree and assessing my own condition. I’m sticky with blood from my nose and my arm, but neither injury seems like it’s actually that bad. 

I can’t be far from Berk, all the vegetation is right, the air feels right, perfectly cool and crisp in my lungs. When I look up, the dragon is looking at me curiously. Annoyed. Like I’ve interrupted a private moment. 

“You Furies are high maintenance, aren’t you? Do you need some privacy or something, bud?” I laugh, “you have a better chance of flying today if you come with me now. We might have a bit of a trek.” 

The dragon snorts. I start walking and it follows, twenty paces behind, ignoring me whenever I look back at it, like it’s too cool to be on a walk with me. No wonder I’m a Thunderdrum kind of guy, a Thunderdrum would say thanks at least. 

I find a path after a few moments in the trees and the dragon growls behind me, I hear it crouching down in the ferns and do the same, ducking behind a tree. There’s something familiar about the path, something familiar about the footsteps that sent the dragon into hiding. I peer around the edge of the tree and freeze, clapping a hand over my mouth. 

It’s me, well, almost me. Skinnier than me, maybe a little younger. Walking in a crooked line down the path and looking up at the sky with a notebook in his hands. He throws one hand in the air and shakes his head, shouting to the sky. 

“Some people lose their axe or their mug, but I manage to lose a whole dragon!” He scribbles all over the notebook, tripping over something and running into a low-hanging branch of the tree I’m hiding behind. He slaps at the branch and yelps, fighting with it and kicking the tree. He pauses. “Whoa.” 

I follow his gaze, trying not to crinkle the leaves around me and see the tree that the dragon and I must have broken in our fall last night, broken halfway down the trunk. 

He runs ahead, slipping down a scraped away trough in the ground. There are dragon scales, dragon blood, probably my blood as well sprinkled along the bare dirt and he carefully takes stock of it all. I have to follow him. I don’t understand how I can be here too, how I can be in this place I don’t know, obviously younger than I am now, somehow clumsier than I am now. I turn around and signal the dragon to wait with an outstretched palm and it hunkers down further into the plants, looking away like it actually didn’t see me. 

I creep after the other me, limping down the rut in the forest ground and wincing as a branch brushes across my arm. He’s oblivious to me, following the path like a tracker dragon in the throes of the chase and I’m barely ten steps behind him when he finds the ropes. He bends down and feels the cut edge with his thumb. 

“What could have done this?” He turns around, and he should see me, he should notice, but he’s looking over my head and just to my right, staring at the trees. “No sharp edges–” His eyes widen when he spots me. Green eyes. And it strikes me who this is. 

This is the chief. 

This is the chief back as a clumsy, harmless kid, and I’m obviously dead with the previous incarnation of that asshole. He yelps, pointing at me and back at his chest, dropping the ropes and notebooks.

“Where am I?” 

“Who are you?” He squeaks and I step towards him, looking him up and down. 

He has two feet. 

Two feet that are both too big for him, at the end of spindly legs. I feel brawny. I think I might throw up. How is this happening? I’m bleeding, you don’t bleed when you’re dead. 

“Hiccup?” I look up at him and he shrugs, nodding slowly. His face goes plaster white and he faints. Just faints dead away and I stare at him for a second, crumpled on the ground. 

I need to hide that dragon while I figure this all out. 

The dragon has followed me halfway down the hill, but it’s still too cool to notice me when I catch up to it. 

“Oh, come on. I know you see me. I’ll bring you fish later, so you can pretend you like me. I’ve got to get you somewhere safe, bud, something weird is going on.” 

A few hundred yards down the hill from where Hiccup is passed out, I find the cove. The cove. It’s a little greener, a little wilder, but so clearly the cove where I learned to swim, the cove Bang and I play in. I urge the dragon past me and it glides over the edge in a strange little curly-que pattern, its damaged tail ruffling uselessly in the wind. It looks back at me and I see it. I recognize him. 

“Toothless,” I whisper and it cocks its head. “You’re—this is messed up. You’re Toothless.” 

The dragon looks away with a discontented sigh and I turn around, wiping my newly damp bloody nose on my arm and jogging up the hill towards Berk.


	2. Chapter 2

I don’t recognize the small, colorless village over the familiar crest. It’s in shambles, some lumps of thatch still on fire as Vikings carry buckets from wells. There’s not a dragon in sight and the cliff where the main hangar is now is just a sad, slick rock face. The forge is there, puny, Gobber taking up most of the room where he stands pounding at an anvil with his favorite hammer hand. The dragon feeders aren’t there, the square is half its size and everyone looks miserable. 

Gobber looks half his age. It’s hard to look at. 

Hel, he probably is half his age. My head hurts and I don’t think I can blame my hard landing. 

I think about going up to Gobber and just explaining. Gobber would believe me, right? Probably not. This is kind of impossible to believe. It makes trolls look like…well, I don’t know, it makes everything I’ve ever made up before look absolutely plausible. 

After watching the town for an hour or so, I settle for stealing a basket of fish from the tiny dock, shouldering it and bringing it back to the dragon. To Toothless. 

He’s mildly happy to see me when I get there, and makes sure to let me know he’s displeased that I’m eating one of his fish for dinner. I do eventually coax him to start a fire for me to cook it though, and the coals are warm enough to lull me to sleep after the sun goes down. I wonder if I’ll wake up in my impromptu bed in front of the chief’s fireplace, next to Bang. 

I don’t think I have that kind of luck, frankly. Historically, I haven’t. 

Of course, this is the instance where it turns out I’m right. I wake up in the cove, Toothless’s back pressed up against mine. He’s warm, sticky warm, like summer shoved under the back of my shirt and I sit up cranky, wiping the sleep out of my eyes and cleaning up at the edge of the cove. How much do night furies eat? Bang would have gone fishing twice by now but Toothless can’t. 

Where did that fin come from anyway? I’ve heard rumors that the chief made it but well, Hiccup was passed out in the forest the last time I checked. Maybe town will make more sense today, maybe it’ll look more like the village I know. I pat Toothless on the tail as I leave, and he ignores me, spraying a section of the ground with plasma flames and laying down on his bed of hot rock. 

The village is absolutely deserted today, all the fires put out, all the shutters drawn and closed. I wait on the ridgeline for a few minutes before it becomes clear that such caution is unnecessary and then I walk down main street towards the fishing dock. The buildings are the same but smaller, as in it’s obvious they were built by the same people, but everything else is different. 

The mood is different, the air is different. Serious. I know that this isn’t some elaborate prank with some poor night fury and some kid who looks too much like me for comfort. It’s probably a dream, but the best way I’ve found to wake up from troubling dreams is to dream them through until the end. Finding the solution to the problem will let me wake up in my own…blanket pile on the chief’s floor with Bang at my side. 

I never thought I’d be wishing to get back to that. 

A man with a bucket on his head comes out of a house to my right and I’m almost relieved, because I’m obviously dreaming if a man with a bucket on his head is walking down the street like there’s nothing wrong in the world. I duck my head anyway, hoping he won’t notice me, but he perks up in recognition. 

“Hiccup?” 

“Uh, no, sorry, you’ve got the wrong person,” I walk faster but he catches my shoulder. 

“I heard you were starting dragon training today, what are you doing out here?” 

“I’m not Hiccup.” 

“Mulch said you’d try that one!” The man grabs my arm with that steely Viking grip and starts dragging me ahead. “Mulch said to keep an eye out for ye. Stoick thought you’d try to spend the day wanderin’ about, I’m glad I caught you.” 

“I’m really really not Hiccup,” I shake my head and pry at his arm. I could break his fingers but I don’t want to, it feels cruel and—whoa.

The dragon academy looms ahead of us, all chains and weapons and heavy gates, nothing like the place I learned to train a terror, the place I first swung onto Bang. There’s yelling and screaming and a hot bolt of fire through the mesh chain roof and the guy with the bucket on his head shoves me in through the gate. 

I try to slip back out, but it’s chaos, a couple of blonde helspawn run past me arguing about a shield, a girl somersaults by my feet, a short boy with black hair hits me in the chest with his shoulder. “Always in the way, Hiccup.” 

“You’re going to get us all killed,” the girl glares at me and it’s like looking up to Ingrid as a tiny kid again. Mom? Mom with an axe almost as tall as she is, holding a shield wrong? I trip over something and look around, trying to get my bearings among the smoke. 

The source of the chaos comes out of the din, a terrified gronckle, running scared from everything with molten gronckle fire oozing from its mouth. Is that…

That’s Meatlug.

Meatlug, the sweetheart all the kids pet, the first dragon I ever steered myself. She’s young and frightened, her eyes bright and glassy, and I don’t think before I’m diving out of the way of a blast of fire and running up to her, holding my hand out towards her nose. She roars and spews flame at me, and Gobber shouts something about Hiccup being out, but I ignore it, clearing my throat to shout over the din. 

“Hey girl,” I somersault out of the way of another blast, coming up alongside her shoulder and leaning into her to avoid more fire. “Hey sweetie, you’re ok. I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re fine, I promise. Hey, stop with the fire,” I swear when some of it licks at my boot, vaulting upwards onto her back where it’s definitely safe. 

I hug her head, finding that little pressure spot all dragons have under their jaw and pinching. She falls the four feet to the ground with a vibrating thud and I cough at the plume of dust around us. 

“Hiccup?” Someone asks, astounded. 

I sit up, vibrating with Meatlug’s contended snores. Mom furrows her eyebrows and blows her hair out of her face, switching her axe—holy shit, my axe—between her hands and cocking her head at me. 

“That’s not Hiccup,” her face contorts and she holds the axe towards me. 

“I got this, babe,” the black haired boy who I only now recognize as Snotlout pushes her shoulder and she glares at him. 

“What are ye talkin’ about lass?” Gobber steps around Meatlug, surprisingly nonplussed. He stares at me for a moment, but it’s the dust and well, he doesn’t exactly expect to see a talking fishbone that isn’t Hiccup, does he?

“Sorry, sorry!” The gate opens and the real Hiccup slips through, “I overslept, I was out I the woods looking for—It’s you.” He stops short and points at me and I laugh, a shocked, terrified sound, sliding off of Meatlug and running for the gate. My shoulder bumps into Hiccup’s and he stumbles backwards, turning to stare at me wide eyed and open mouthed. 

I race to the cove as fast as I can, stumbling down the muddy rut where we crashed, and Toothless is waiting for me when I get there. 

“We need to get mobile, dude, this is…this is a horrible situation. Shit. What the Hel is going on? Do you know what’s going on?” I turn to him and frown. He’s apathetic, his eyes narrowed intelligently in my direction and I sigh. “I miss Bang.” 

He stares at me. 

“You know, when the entire world gets turned upside down and my Mom is fourteen and almost cuts my head off, Bang would hug me or something. He definitely doesn’t get all uppity when I take a single fish.” 

Toothless sighs, rolling forward onto his feet and shaking dirt off of slick scales. He walks a few steps forward and sits down on his haunches in front of me. 

“Is that a hug offer, bud?” I step forward and rest my forehead against the still disconcertingly warm front of his neck. He snorts against my hair and I step back, “Ok. Even if you can’t fly, I’m still going to try and hop on your back. Because you’re a faster runner than me, and well…” I think of Mom, tiny and feisty, tossing her axe around like she couldn’t wait to use it. “Well, I’m sort of expecting a visitor, if I’m honest.” 

I pat his back and urge him down onto all fours. He’s taller than Bang, ganglier, and I feel like I’ll break his leg if I use his joint for a boost like I learned when I was little. 

“Ok bud, I’m just going to jump, I’m sorry if this is a little clunky—”

“Wait!” An all too familiar voice breaks the silence and I groan, turning to see Hiccup scrambling down the internal cliff face of the cove. He’s holding a tiny knife in both hands and he points it at me when he lands on the ground. 

“Not exactly who I expected charging me with a weapon.” 

“I shot down that night fury and…” he gets closer, looking up at the dragon and gulping, his tiny, knobby throat bobbing. I feel tall and big, the biggest I’ve ever felt. He looks at my face and twitches the knife. “I’m going to cut out its heart and take it back to the village—”

“Wait, what?” I look at the knife again and notice he’s pointing it at Toothless, not me. “You think you’re going to kill Toothless?” 

Toothless leans down and growls, pearly white teeth exposed as he notices the knife pointed towards him. Hiccup blanches, shifting between two feet and setting his jaw. 

“He’s the only night fury anyone has ever shot down and I have to prove it!” 

“And he has to be dead for you to prove it?” I step between the dragon and the knife, unthinking, looking at Hiccup’s loose, clumsy grip and telling myself I could bat it from his hands in an instant. It’s true, but the blade pointing at my chest makes me nervous. “You don’t kill Toothless.” 

“Toothless?” Hiccup falters, the knife dipping in his hands. He glances around me at the growling dragon. “Because that makes a whole lot of sense.” 

I roll my eyes, “you named him—never mind. That sounds crazy.” I step forward and snatch the knife from his hands tucking it into my belt. “You killing him is crazy. You’re friends, here.” I grab Hiccup’s shoulder and shove him towards the dragon. Toothless roars, blue plasma building at the back of his throat and I swear. “Fuck. No. Toothless, what are you doing? I thought you were my friend.” 

“I’m dreaming,” Hiccup slumps to the ground, crossing his legs and holding his head in his hands. “You…you’re like this big, handsome version of me and you think you’re friends with a night fury and I must be dead. I’m dreaming or I’m dead.” 

“Tell me about it!” I stomp my foot and toss the knife back to him, sticking it in the ground a few inches in front of his crossed legs. “There. Kill him if you want, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore.” I flop down next to Toothless and he calms down too, sitting on his haunches next to me. He warbles in my direction and I shrug. 

Hiccup looks like he’s about to pass out. 

“I’ll do it,” he threatens, wrenching the knife from the soil and holding it in a tight knuckled fist. It’s like no one has ever taught him how to use it. 

“Go ahead,” I gesture to Toothless. He whuffs at me indignantly, curling his lip at Hiccup and showing a line of pink gums. 

“His teeth—they’re gone.” 

“Retractable.” 

“How do you know that?” He turns on me, the knife hanging limply from his hand and I roll my eyes. 

“Put that thing away, kid, you’re going to hurt yourself.” I’ve never called anyone kid before, but it feels right. The longer I look at him the sturdier I feel. Maybe this is Loki’s idea of a self-esteem boost.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” he trembles slightly, holding the knife up again, like he’s pretending it’s a reflex. 

I push my hand through my hair and Hiccup frowns at me. “Look, I…” The right lie to tell hits me and I throw myself into it, thinking of the weariest traveler I’ve ever seen and trying to mimic it. “I’m from some far off island—”

“What island?” 

“B-R-No, I’m just tired.” I shake my head, “Kreb.” 

“Kreb?” Hiccup is too comfortable in the presence of the dragon for a kid that was threatening to kill it a few minutes ago. “Never heard of it.” 

“No one around here has, which is why I can’t get home.”

“Does everyone on Kreb look like my buff twin?” Hiccup asks, his eyes narrowed, and I can see why everyone is always talking about how smart he is. 

“Yeah, I was wondering about that too. Do you have any cousins on Kreb?” 

“I just told you I’ve never heard of it.” 

“Huh,” I panic, cupping my chin and reaching for anything but the truth. ‘I’m your bastard son from thirty years from now’ won’t exactly cut it. “Any long lost relatives you’ve lost track of? Dad go pillaging often?”

It’s a low blow. It’s all I have. 

He shrinks slightly, crossing his arms and shrugging. “Does everyone on Kreb know about Night Furies?” 

“We all ride dragons, so…” 

I expect him to be astounded. He cocks his head. “Go ahead.” 

“What?” 

“On Berk, people brag. Go ahead, ride the night fury. Prove it.” 

“Toothless’s tail is torn though,” I gesture to the half fin. “He can’t fly.” 

“His wings are fine,” Hiccup sets his jaw, his childish, rounded jaw. Gods, he looks young. So young. I was never that young, that scrawny, that small. I was born bigger than that. “Show me.” 

I think of Mom. Of how she’s probably stalking us through the woods. Of how Hiccup probably left a trail a mile wide with his too big feet and his clumsy walk. Shit. Mom is scary as I know her. But that glimpse of that girl I saw in the arena is terrifying in a reckless, teenaged, unhinged way. 

“What do you think, bud?” 

Toothless warbles back at me, curling his scaly black lips in Hiccup’s direction. Judgemental. I snort. Maybe this dragon isn’t as bad as I thought. 

“If you’re so cool and Kreb is so cool, then ride the night fury. Ride it into Berk and show everyone. They’re all freaking out about what you did with that Gronkle, they wouldn’t mind your head on a spit too.” 

“You aren’t this violent,” I frown. 

“I’m not that handsome either,” he gestures at me, his arm floppy. He sounds like me, I hate everyone who let the entire island keep their little secret for so long. “Show me.” 

“He can’t fly,” I shrug, patting Toothless’s shoulder and apologizing to him under my breath. “I’m gonna jump on, bud, you’re a little taller than what I’m used to, so this probably won’t be graceful.” 

“What are you used to?” 

“I can’t do this if you keep interrupting me.” 

“Oh, I didn’t realize the noble, ancient art of dragon-riding needed absolute silence.” 

“Gods, you’re irritating,” I roll my eyes and Toothless warbles, I’m assuming in agreement. I pat his shoulder and he squirms away from it, neck tilted stiffly upwards. 

“Not the first time I’ve heard that today…wait. I don’t know your name.” 

“I didn’t tell you my name,” I roll my eyes, “because—oof.” 

Something hits me between the shoulder blades like a boulder falling from the cliff above us and I hit the ground face first with a thud.


	3. Chapter 3

Something hits me between the shoulder blades like a boulder falling from the cliff above us and I hit the ground face first with a thud. Toothless roars, the heat of a plasma blast rushing above my head. Hiccup yells. 

The sharp edge of an axe introduces itself to the back of my neck, ice cold against the skin. 

“Astrid!” Hiccup shouts, and I can just imagine him taking that stupid little knife out again. 

“I’m going to kill him,” Mom’s voice shakes, the axe blade biting into my neck. A bead of blood seeps around the blade and I inhale, bracing my palms against the ground. “And…and then I’m going to kill that stupid dragon.” 

Toothless growls. It sounds like he fled to the other end of the clearing, because apparently he doesn’t like me enough yet to protect me from insane teenage girls. 

“Astrid—”

I feel her shift at the sound of her name, the axe digging in more deeply. Carelessly. She’s forgotten where her weapon is. I make my move, shoving against the ground as hard as I can and rolling, the weight on my back shifting and tumbling sideways. 

I’m up faster than her, blocking her favorite right handed down swing as she stumbles to her feet. She’s not as strong as me, and the realization shocks me long enough for her to swing the axe around, barely missing my leg. It’s too long for her, balanced wrong, and I kick her arm, watching her grip slip impossibly. 

She fights like she taught me to. Or will teach me to. Whatever. The parries are predictable, swipe, swing, stab, step. I block the first dozen, grunting at the sharp thud of her axe handle against my wounded arm. She smiles a smile that looks wrong on her face, a smile she once yelled at Ingrid about for an hour, like there’s a thrill in my pain. 

I swipe her feet from under her with a swift kick to the ankle, grabbing her axe handle just beneath the blade and yanking. She glares at me, that ‘how dare you’ glare that sent me running from so many messes as a kid. But I’m stronger than her. I know she’s going to kick me before she does. I block her leg with my knee and yank the axe entirely from her grip, adjusting my hands and holding it ready to swing down on her throat. 

It’s my old axe. I’m a little too tall for it, but it feels right in my hands. 

Toothless roars and I hear him running up behind me—apparently all about backing up the winning team, that complete asshole of a dragon. 

“Toothless!” I shout at him. “Stop right there, alright?” 

Mom’s eyes dart between me and Hiccup. Me and the dragon. Me and her axe. They widen and she struggles for a convincing sneer. 

“Who are you?” 

“Astrid—“ Hiccup steps in, trying to push the axe down and step between us. I think he could hang from the axe and I’d barely notice, so I hold steady, regripping the axe and priming to swing. “He’s my cousin. From Kreb. I didn’t know he existed, but—and I know he chose the worst time in the world to show up but—Toothless!” Hiccup yelps like it fixes everything, “He was just going to show me how he rides Toothless! Dumb name, I know, but—”

Astrid shoves him decisively to the ground, taking half a step forward and narrowing her eyes at me. Her gaze softens slightly, momentarily, her eyes darting between my face and my chest and her axe. She flushes, glare renewed and furious. 

“Who. The. Hel. Are. You?” 

“I’m Eret,” I frown, lowering the axe and holding it out towards her. She’s not stupid, she knows I can win now. She won’t pick the same fight again. “Try and hold onto this a little better next time.” 

“Who is that?” She points over my shoulder with a steady hand. 

“That’s m—Hi—“ I sigh, “that’s Toothless.” 

“You,” she falters, a millisecond hesitation like the one that let me beat her in the first place. She’s young and shifty and it hurts to look at. “You two are dead.” 

She turns and runs without another word, and I’ve heard this part of the story. I’ve heard that the chief chased her down and dropped her in a tree and rescued her and they flew around and…

“Thor’s beard, his tail is still broken,” I mutter to myself, taking off after her. She can’t make it back. She can’t. 

Toothless warbles behind me, and I hear Hiccup stumbling at my heels. 

“What do you mean still?” He starts to fall behind as I scramble through the opening to the cove, sprinting into the woods. The back of my neck is still bleeding, and when I start to sweat I can smell it, coppery and pervasive around me. 

I can see Mom’s back ahead of me, blue and getting bigger as she stumbles through a thick thatch of undergrowth. Hiccup is catching up again, faster weaving through the trees and I shout back at him, “we’ve got to take her down.” 

“That’s impossible!” His voice cracks. I shake my head and run ahead, my legs and lungs burning as I finally reach out and catch her shoulder. 

She bats my hand away, I groan at the punishment coming for me in about thirty years, but lunge forward anyway, tackling her to the ground with both arms around her waist. She hits the ground with an ‘oof’ and it’s the reverse of a few minutes ago, a perfectly sweet sort of revenge for the throbbing between my shoulder blades. 

She squirms like an eel, shoving at my shoulders, kicking at my legs, pulling my hair, but I hold in tighter, planting my knee on her stomach and pressing down until she groans. 

“You can’t keep me out here!” 

“Yeah? We’ll see about that.” 

She smacks me, I grab her wrist and pin that to the ground too. She’s bright red and looking at me strangely again, “Why wasn’t that dragon attacking you?” 

“We’re friends.” 

“He was going to let me kill you.” There’s a tremor in the threat, like she didn’t want to do it. 

“I never said good friends.” 

She huffs, “you’re a traitor to Vikings.” 

“Yeah, and you practically handed your axe to the enemy.” 

She starts thrashing again and I put my other knee on her shoulder, looking over my shoulder at Hiccup for help.

“Can you talk some sense into her?” 

He goes so white I think he’s going to pass out again, “what do you mean talk to her?” 

She growls, like a pinned down fireworm queen and I can just imagine that psycho with the bucket on his stupid head mounting my heart on a fucking spit in the town square. 

“I mean talk to her—Ouch!” 

She bites me. Right on the arm that’s already cut, her teeth digging into the skin before she’s shoving me off and sprinting towards the village again. 

We aren’t fast enough this time. It’s my forest, but the trees are almost all in the wrong place, the undergrowth is thicker than I know, and I’ve been beaten up a little too much in the past two days to set any land speed records, alright? Hiccup could run faster than me at this point but he doesn’t, hanging back and waiting to follow my lead. 

The village is in an uproar, it seems, probably about me—which I totally get, because I’m freaking out too, and all of the anxiety I pushed off in favor of beating the crap out of my small, angry mother comes back all at once. I’m going to be in so much trouble when I get home. If I get home. 

They haven’t invented adequate swears for this moment yet. 

Astrid runs straight to the square, straight up to Gobber, skidding to a stop in front of him and wiping blood from her mouth. My blood. From where she fucking bit me. Little savage. My arm is still stinging as I stop behind a shack of a house and peer around the corner. Hiccup stops with me, looking hopefully at my profile, and I have no fucking idea how I went from him badly holding a knife on me to seeing me as the leader of this bizarre, doomed situation. 

“What’s she saying?” Hiccup whispers. 

“I can’t hear,” I lean forward as much as I dare, closing my eyes and trying to hear through the din. It’s a muddled fog of indistinguishable voices and I swear, watching her point towards the woods and gesticulate. I hear Gobber’s booming laugh. She stomps, grabbing Gobber’s arm and trying to drag him. 

He pats her shoulder in a way that reeks of ‘Hiccup’s twin is running around somewhere and I don’t care about some mythical dragon’. 

She grabs Snotlout from the crowd, like he’ll back her up, and he tries to put his arm around her waist. She hits him too. Hiccup chuckles and I look at him. 

“What? Hitting Snotlout is always funny.” 

“You’re an idiot,” I mutter, because that hasn’t changed. “We should get back to Toothless. We have a lot to talk about.”

Hiccup starts asking asinine questions before we even breach the edge of the woods.

“How did you do that? I’ve never seen anyone take Astrid down—”

“I didn’t. She got away.” 

“But she had to fight really, really dirty to do it. I’ve never seen her almost lose, even. If you hadn’t been talking to me, you would have won.” 

“Thanks for that, by the way,” I examine my arm, the perfect bite wound layered over my injury from the fall. That’s going to scar. Arvid is going to laugh his ass off about that one if I ever get home. And if he ever talks to me again. 

“I didn’t know what to say to her!” Hiccup trips over a tree root, stumbling to catch up. “I never know what to say to her.” 

“Weren’t you threatening to kill me before she showed up?” 

He falters, like he’s just remembering that, “is everyone on Kreb like you?” 

“Yes, it is an entire island of identical twins that are all slightly beefier versions of you. I thought you said you hadn’t heard of it.” 

“Very funny,” he glares at me, and there’s a shadow of the great chief I never really believed in there. He’s not scared of me anymore, I realize, and I’m honestly a little insulted. I just kicked Mom’s ass in front of him and that somehow alleviates his fear? “What are you going to do with Toothless? The village will try to kill him.” 

“I thought you were going to cut out his heart.” 

Hiccup frowns, stuffing his hands into his pockets and looking at the ground. “I…you know, when you were fighting Astrid, he was roaring behind you and…and he looked sort of helpless, and—he looked how I felt.” 

There’s conviction in the words, the same kind of conviction I’m used to shoving back in the chief’s face and I pause to look at him, really look at him. He weighs as much as Arvid’s left arm, probably. He’s short, and scrawny, and I find myself wanting to trust him. 

Maybe I have to. Maybe this bizarre thing is punishment for confusing doing shitty things with being a shitty person. 

Fifty year old Chief Hiccup is a royal pain in my ass. Fifteen year old Hiccup seems sort of harmless. Kind of brave. Willing to see a dragon as something other than a threat at my word. 

I hold my hand out and he stares at it like it’s stranger than the Night Fury. “I’m Eret.” 

“Hiccup.” He shakes it, his grip limp and clammy as I feel.

“You—I mean we. We need to fix his tail.” 

“Right, I’ll get my dragon tail regrowing tincture,” he rolls his eyes and trudges forward, “I don’t know why I left it at home today of all days.” 

“You’re a blacksmith’s apprentice, aren’t you?” 

He pauses, “how did you know that?” 

“Oh. Right,” I pretend to be curious about the bite wound on my arm. It’s going to get infected, isn’t it? This is penance for making fun of Arvid’s infected tattoos. The Gods are getting all their revenge at once. “Your sleeves are burned. I guessed.” 

He looks at his shirt and frowns at me, his brows knitting together in a way I’ve seen in my own reflection so many times. My expression falls carefully neutral, like he’s going to notice the same thing. 

“Build him one?” 

“Well why not?” 

“Because he won’t let me close to him.” Hiccup almost sounds sad about it. 

I shrug and lead the way back through the narrow passage into the cove, “then that’s the first step, isn’t it?”


End file.
